Gov’t Censorship Requests Up 718%

Google exercised its belief in freedom of speech recently, turning down a censorship request by the Canadian government to remove a YouTube video showing a man urinating on his own Canadian passport.

“We received a request from the Passport Canada office to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet,” the company revealed. “We did not comply with this request,” Google said.

But Google had to comply with others: The search giant claims it increasingly fields requests from government agencies trying to use their power to suppress political opinions and other material they don’t like.